Our house is hilarious right now. We got back from our great team retreat to Jacmel on Sunday and our lives have already changed immensely. With our shelter program coming to an end we have switched our focus to more long term work. A large part of long-term work is learning the language of Haiti, kreyol ayisyen, or Haitian Creole.
We are all spending a minimum of 15 hours per week learning this language. Compared to the first foreign language I learned, creole is very simple. We all have different language books, different ways of practicing, and different styles of practicing. You know, we ran out of propane last week (apparently there is none in our part of the country right now, boo we want to make pancakes), so on Monday I went to ask one of my teammates if they could go retrieve some propane and when they came out of their room after the knock, I was greeted with a booming, "ALO!!!" which is hello in creole. We are all bustling around our house with our new creole phrases we've learned from the day.
The title of this blog post, "n'ap apran kreyol," means, we are learning creole. Today at lunch 4 of us sat down with one of our translators and the 2 ladies who help us at the house and described all of our families. It was amazing. I was able to communicate that I have 2 sisters, 2 grandmas, a lot of cousins, a mom and a dad, and a brother-in-law. The translation of brother-in-law is, good brother bon fre. Congratulations Jason, your a good brother!
I remember when I was in Spain during college I learned more Spanish during my dinner times with Emilia my house mother, than any other way. I think the same will be true here, it just might happen during lunch. I love languages. I love studying them because they explain so much of a culture. Learning a foreign language is not just learning different words for the same meaning, it helps you to learn about a people.
Pray for us that we get it quickly. If we could learn Haitian creole really well, we could do so many more things.
Here's to enkor kreoyl!
Jacmel, yes I know my life is very hard
We are all spending a minimum of 15 hours per week learning this language. Compared to the first foreign language I learned, creole is very simple. We all have different language books, different ways of practicing, and different styles of practicing. You know, we ran out of propane last week (apparently there is none in our part of the country right now, boo we want to make pancakes), so on Monday I went to ask one of my teammates if they could go retrieve some propane and when they came out of their room after the knock, I was greeted with a booming, "ALO!!!" which is hello in creole. We are all bustling around our house with our new creole phrases we've learned from the day.
The title of this blog post, "n'ap apran kreyol," means, we are learning creole. Today at lunch 4 of us sat down with one of our translators and the 2 ladies who help us at the house and described all of our families. It was amazing. I was able to communicate that I have 2 sisters, 2 grandmas, a lot of cousins, a mom and a dad, and a brother-in-law. The translation of brother-in-law is, good brother bon fre. Congratulations Jason, your a good brother!
I remember when I was in Spain during college I learned more Spanish during my dinner times with Emilia my house mother, than any other way. I think the same will be true here, it just might happen during lunch. I love languages. I love studying them because they explain so much of a culture. Learning a foreign language is not just learning different words for the same meaning, it helps you to learn about a people.
Pray for us that we get it quickly. If we could learn Haitian creole really well, we could do so many more things.
Here's to enkor kreoyl!
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